BeamerBikes

This is unlike any other environment in my opinion. There are massive active inputs being put in place by Washington in unheard of time frames. As result, I don’t think the old advice other than “Cash is King” and “No debt is best” applies until things settle out. My other concern would be making sure to take advantage of any gift cards or loyalty points. If the company associated with them goes bust or falls on very hard time, the gift card value evaporates with them or points gets devalued.

If this sell-off keeps up leading to a harder slowdown, I think the politics discussions will get much easier because even the die hard folks are going to be saying “Shut up Stewart!” When lots of folks start facing wide-spread hardship across the political spectrum, the culture wars and personality cults will fade into the background. Least that’s my hope.

This time it “feels” like it will be different than downturns in the past. Moderator note: politics redacted. The American consumer is done. Current retirees are entering retirement with very little savings. Housing costs are $$$ more than ever, mortgage defaults just hit another high. Definite pain is already here for most without savings/investments. Once the investment class get spooked, it’ll pull the last leg of spending out. Trying to find a bright spot here. Those that can adjusting lifestyle might be in a better spot. Meanwhile, if you already learned to make do with less, the adjustment won’t be anything new.

To be clear, I’m not trying to time the market for advantage. This is more I didn’t feel comfortable with the risk of being all-in even with just target date funds. Given the outsized returns of the previous couple years and all the uncertainty, I wanted to sleep better knowing that a significant chunk was safe at 4-5%. If I had overreacted - tariffs go in and the market didn’t think any of it, I’d go back in. In this case, I may have rebalanced/profit taken at the right time and/or just got plain lucky at the Stock Market Casino. Either way, I know I will end up going back in eventually for long term growth. I just don’t recognize the valuations, and I don’t buy into the AI hype train. I stick with businesses I understand in the Vegas brokerage account. Mostly stay in target date low expense funds for the vast majority of the retirement. I’m not going to try to time the bottom, and I accept I might miss out on some upswing. Bigger believer in accumulating via saving versus growing aggressively.

It’s going to be interesting if/when we see where it will bottom out this year. S&P 4900 would be close to a 20% peak to trough. I’m still a bit of a novice investor. I pulled way back out of equities at the beginning of February, and told myself I will let things shake loose. If things don’t go to shit by April/May, maybe I overreacted and it’s time to hop back in. I didn’t pull everything out, but I probably parked 60% in high yield money markets. I’m still contributing to my 401k. It’s hard to watch the markets these days.

L33t skilz

The site has started to render weird on iOS on chrome. I have switched between render as mobile vs desktop and both have a pretty clunky layout. Anyone else seeing this?

Yeah, I may just hang on to my paper ones. I’m a novice coin and currency collector so there’s a little charm there. I luckily don’t have a pile of the EEs anymore. My dad used to get them with every paycheck, a throw back when steel companies partnered with the treasury during WWII for war bonds.

Update - I might be looking at making a larger life insurance payment this year for the cash value add. The base fix rate is attractive enough for a “safe” investment. Depends how the bonus looks this year from my company. Viewing the policy as potential tax free withdrawal vehicle should I retire early. It won’t be much to be the sole option. However it might come in handy if I need to keep my taxable income low in a year for Roth conversions? I enjoy having options.

You can convert your paper bonds into a treasury direct conversion account. I’d recommend doing that either soon OR wait for a long while. Why? That conversion activity is based out of West Virginia and the office is getting the DOGE treatment. Who knows what paper bond servicing is going to be like a year from now? I likewise have some very recent paper bonds I need to convert. Debating holding onto them for the long haul to admire them as a semi collectible until I need the money and/or normalcy returns.

Part of me wants to see if it will do a dead cat bounce, but the other part of me is…. The cat just fell off the cliff, the bottom is still a ways down. As others have mentioned, if you compare it to Ford or GM, you will have valuations maybe $20-$30. What makes Tesla special? Elon? Maybe that’s not such an advantage anymore? Robo-taxis? Who’s going to get in a robo taxi when there going to be a crap load of folks driving for uber again as a side hustle? Self-driving tech? Only an advantage if they can sell their cars and right now, that’s questionable. I’m also an EV owner btw. Just never was a fan of Tesla’s design philosophy and lock in. So it’s not the car for me.

From Florida - Alleged Florida killer of 2 disabled men may have been 'targeting the elderly, gay community,' police say https://www.yahoo.com/news/alleged-florida-killer-2-disabled-173313867.html

Probably best to move/merge it into there

There’s a thread already started for him in the spa & massage section

Interesting article there’s a paywall but gist of it. Cardiologists and other docs are going on the GLP-1s themselves and noticing other peers doing the same. The Physicians Really Are Healing Themselves, With Ozempic - The New York Times WWW.NYTIMES.COM At cardiology conferences and diabetes meetings, doctors can’t help noticing that thin seems to be very in.

What someone pays in income tax relative to what I pay in income tax has no bearing to my approach to tipping. My fight with taxes is with my respective government officials, not with someone providing me a service that isn’t in a tax scale. I don’t assess any service provider by what I perceive they pay in taxes. If there’s great - reliable - consistent services rendered, I will choose to show appreciation in a variety of ways. Cash just happens to be the most commonly appreciated. All that being said - I likewise endorse the idea that in lieu of tips, being a low drama reliable respectful client means more to any provider than a one timer who’s takes up your time and still ends up trying to short pay. Having a regular client that states hey are you free tonight at 7pm (and usually shows up on time), there’s minimal back and forth, and a generally pleasant interaction for both - there’s base income that will keep the lights on. Another good sign - if you are still getting your appts taken by provider, odds are they okay with the arrangement.

Let me add - so enjoy your collections and treasure it as it makes you happy. If you can start parting with the collection to someone else who shares the interest, all the better.

I’m going to be down in Miami for work. I planned to tack on some weekend fun. Debating between something new Staying up in FLL to check out the stripper bars there(haven’t been there yet), being a beach bum, unplug. so recommendations for best place/area to stay close to beach and/or Uber-able to Johnson’s/LeBoy? OR Renting a car and taking two days to check out some of the keys that I usually drive through in the past Key Largo, and then acouple days in Key West for the weekend. Unsure if Mardi Gras is a big thing in Key West. I don’t know what the Bourbon Pub dancer crew looks like these days.

No no no, we got a good thing going here. Don’t be bringing any of that caca around. Only fights should be about how much to tip, bears v/s twinks, deposits. Lamenting why there are so many women in the gay strip club.

Should have charged him 1/2 the ER rate! That’d easily be a 10k+ visit. ER doc, x-rays, specialists etc.

Sadly, echoing everyone else’s thoughts here. Collectibles should be for your enjoyment, primarily. Any profit made is a sweetener, but then you have to part ways with that enjoyment. Not a sad thing, if it’s being used to bring new enjoyment into your life. One more data point, you can look into estate sale auction sites. A good number of them have gone to Online formats, which will let you see historical actual closed prices. I find estate sales to be a bit sad, but I’ve picked up some sentimental items. I haven’t looked into the stamps side of the house, but I do occasionally flirt with getting a bigger coin collection. The challenge I have - I don’t see them as being an investment. It has to be something I appreciate for the beauty or historical nature. I don’t see myself parting with these items unless I’m doing a massive liquidation to pare things down for whoever has to handle my affairs.

Eh, in this hobby community, you’re amongst friends. Hell, having befriended multiple strippers when I had acouple years of being a strip club regular, you end being able to converse with other strippers in a way that’s more business like than entertainment. Industry is industry at the end of the night. That being said, some strippers/escorts know they have your attention, and they’ll show their character when they decide how to interact with you.

I’m going on 6 months plus on the topical 2 pumps a day. Doctor monitored with blood tests. Only downside for me is ball shrinkage. It’s real. However while they were bigger before, they weren’t producing enough Testosterone. I’ll have to live with the trade off for a better libido. Went from slightly bigger than average, they are now about 30% smaller. Just enough to go hiding more regularly when it’s cold so filling out a jock as a grower not a show-er isn’t in the cards anymore. oh well, I’d rather have a working set and the energy back.

Also this from the client side, unless I know it’s an international person, my immediate reaction to WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal - this is likely a scam. A phone number offers a small bit of traceability/verification.

In general, Americans aren’t as privacy conscious as Europeans. Also, end to end encryption is nice, but if the feds want your texts, they’ll subpoena them in the name of “protecting the children” and the companies will quickly comply.